Red, Green, Violet — Metro nears normal service with three more lines opened

On Thursday, the Metro saw 84,841 passengers use the service throughout its two shifts. Service continued in two shifts, in the morning from 7am to 11am and in the evening from 4pm to 8pm.

Ridership in the Delhi Metro continued to rise on Thursday, after three more lines — Violet, Red and Green — were opened four days after the public transit system reopened its doors to passengers since being shut for over five months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Passenger traffic on the service has seen a steady rise, as more corridors have reopened over the past few days. (PTI)

On Thursday, the Metro saw 84,841 passengers use the service throughout its two shifts. Service continued in two shifts, in the morning from 7am to 11am and in the evening from 4pm to 8pm.

Passenger traffic on the service has seen a steady rise, as more corridors have reopened over the past few days.

The Red, Green and Violet lines saw thin but steady attendance on Thursday. Ridership data released by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) shows that the Red Line received 8,037 passengers, the Green Line received 3,564 passengers and the Violet Line saw a ridership of 6,373 passengers.

The three corridors that had been opened over the past three days — Yellow, Blue and Pink — also saw a gradual improvement in ridership on Thursday.

The Yellow Line (Huda City Centre-Samaypur Badli), the first corridor to be opened, saw 29,656 passengers. In contrast, only the line saw a ridership of around 15,500 when it was opened on Monday.

Over 31,000 people used the Blue Line, which is the most popular corridor on the service. Thursday’s passenger traffic on the Blue Line was the highest across all lines since the service restarted. Meanwhile, 5,977 people used the Pink Line on Thursday.

“Overall passenger boarding (total trips passengers made) on Wednesday’s operational lines was 103, 412,” said Anuj Dayal, executive director (corporate communications), DMRC.

Puneet Dhir Singh, who was travelling from Jhilmil to Kashmere Gate on the Red Line, said that before Covid-19 hit the national capital, the Kashmere Gate interchange station would be packed, with little space for passengers to even stand inside trains.

“I was pleasantly surprised at the arrangements made at each level. Commuters were also very careful. A person had taken off his mask in the train to talk on the phone, but a fellow passenger promptly asked him to put it back on,” Singh said.

On Friday, the Metro corporation will begin services on the Magenta Line (Janakpuri West-Botanical Garden) and Grey Line (Dwarka-Najafgarh). With this, all the major corridors of the Delhi Metro network will become serviceable. Operational hours will on Friday also be increased to 7am to 1pm in the morning and 4pm to 10pm in the evening.

In the final leg, on Saturday, the Metro will go back to operating from 6am to 11pm, while also opening up the Airport Express Line (New Delhi-Dwarka Sector-21) for passengers.

“Owing to the new norms of social distancing in place, which has significantly reduced the number of persons to be carried in a train, DMRC has decided to run the peak hour frequency of trains from 8am to 8pm, doing away with the concept of off-peak hours from 11am to 4pm, where services were available with less trains/trips earlier,” the DMRC said in a statement on Thursday.

The Metro said, once normal service is resumed on Saturday, trains will be available every 3 to 15 minutes from 6am to 8am. From 8am to 8pm, on all main corridors, frequency will be in the range 2.45 minutes and 6 minutes, and after 8pm, train frequency will return to the 3-15 minute range.